Real World
Sitemap The Real World VS Infinite BS Columbia * See Also Real Physics (Common Sense should NOT be avoided) * See Also Wave_of_the_hand (The god 'cuz' says so ...) * See Also True_Infinites (Numbers are not game writers friends) --- --- --- --- --- THE REAL WORLD How thing actually work - common human existence tells the Player WHAT 'ought to be so'. The Laws of Physics Consistency - even if you have some system of magic or techno wizardry, AT LEAST MAKE IT CONSISTANT WITH ITSELF ACROSS THE STORY. Normal People should behave like normal people - with likely motivations (SEE "SHAKESPEARE" ...) . . . . . . --- --- --- Problem : When you make a Pile of Steal Girder Rivets, You Don't Suddenly Have a Skyscraper. ' : Oh yes, Fink just 'saw' things through Tears, and ''Viola, lots of amazing things for Columbia ... Magic wands aside, making things when you don't have all the missing parts usually isn't so easily done. Leaving the Player Confused : With story Explanations left missing, when they can be provided through fairly cheap Assets (ie - Audio Diary elaborations ...) But this does that require effort to apply logic/reason/consistency/attention-to-detail - which lack was Infinite BS's problem. Problem with Fantasy explanations : It might expose how little that imaginary World's "great" achievement(s) really were - Like Columbia supposedly tatking only 6 months to build right after Comstock got into the Prophet business (as per the badly chosen timeline dates), and ignoring how much more MISSING work is required to really MAKE all those 'magic science' (advanced/not-existing-yet) things. Conveniently IGNORINGg how impossible it would be for the game setting to exist under that slipshod logic. GOOD WRITING Grounds the imagined world in reality - '''Good when done for Sci-Fi, Bad for attempting it in Fantasy. When you have less systematic/less-understood/non-real-world elements, it can take ALOT of background explanations to justify many seen things' existence -- To have the story make sense to the Player (and not just toss some ill-used buzzwords at the Player to try to pretend to do so). --- --- --- Real World Complexity : It takes just ONE THING to make something NOT WORK. Hence the problem with complex things. (Computer games are utterly simple compared to most complex Real World things, and perhaps that is why Levine&Co so often missed that aspect of simulating a mostly Real World setting.) Example : There are 300,000 parts in a (real) SM-65 Atlas Missile (The one used by USA's first manned orbit of the Earth in 1962). The SM-65 Atlas was first launched in year 1958 (after a cumulative decade of technological development in US, and based on another previous decade of rocket technological development in Germany/USA). For Columbia, nothing like this is even remotely possible. That ludicrous Rocket Lighthouse thing at the beginning of Infinite BS is just artist cutscene claptrap (Trying to recreate the previous games 'Wow' moment of first seeing the undersea dystopia). Having Booker be on a LSD trip would have been a million times more logical - Note - 'Atlas' in Mythology was the Titan(god being) who held up the World - He was NOT instead some parasite criminal who was an evil greedy destroyer. --- --- --- '' Assumptions by the writers that 'everything could be done in a small Dystopia X' reflects an ignorance of how complex the Real World is '' Scoobie-Doo logic hardly creates a believable world. --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Big Machines used to manufacture on a mass scale. Example - Large things like the hull plates of Bathyspheres. Girders and such take machines far larger than this. You can do the manufacturing on a smaller scale and more 'by hand', but it usually costs Dozens of times more - each unit. Simple Realism : Most things in Rapture WERE MADE ON THE SURFACE --- --- --- Developing Technology by Looking Through Tears ? ''' : Really it is '''just that easy ? Shouldn't Levine&Co have just looked at "Call Of Duty" (purchased a copy and played the game) to LEARN how to make a good game then (if it was THAT easy) ??? Suchong Collaborating with Fink on Each Others Products ??? : Spying on each other first through some crackling time-traveling portals, which just so happen to conveniently come into existence in their two respective labs. THEN they converse to 'collaborate' (maybe Suchong sold Fink some 'good opium' too ???) Drinkable Plasmids (with oxidizing agent !!!) and Magic Power Genetic Mutation Potions - they just passed a few notes back and forth for a few days ... (I assume Fink could read KOREAN ...) But such Genius's can do such things. Yeah, Suchong even created his own portal machine. Riiiight...... I kinda wonder if the writers of this game (DLC in particular) have any inkling about how (ANY) technology is developed, *OR* WHAT is first required to be understood for developing ANY modern technology (in this case Genetic Manipulation Which we can hardly do today - 70 years later in Rapture's case, and 100+ in Finks case). The writers make it seem like Fink was just (through a Tear) Seeing someone boiling Tea, took notes, and then came back and did it himself, and Voila Genetic Plasmids (SORRY LEVINE Basic Reality : supposedly Fink was now producing complex "Genetic Plasmids", for which any Tool/Knowledge/Material/Understanding HE had available was the equivalent of 'A Chimp rubbing two Turds together thinking he was making Fire' ). ' That's an example of that old addage : "Writing is Easy, Writing WELL is Hard" ... ' --- --- --- ' "Make Believe" Technology Is So Easy To Write, But Not To Do' : Having the Columbians create something as complex as an Airship is like Ken Levine building a cellphone using a Toothbrush and paper from pad of Postit Notes and a piece of used gum. REALITY IS : Thousands of exactly technical blueprints are required for building such a vehicle, all using dozens of integrated mature technologies. To do this there is then many times MORE design/development for ALL of the machines/processes that made the required then-in-future materials and components used to build such a mechanism. *AND* THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO ACTUALLY BUILD ALL THOSE MACHINES/PROCESSES TO BEFORE PROCEEDING ANY FURTHER. SO you would need all the well-capable technicians/workers who have the YEARS of experience with such processes/materials/mechanisms. Sorry to tell you, NONE existed in Columbia (nor the rest of the world YET, for that matter). Airships were extreme high-tech even decades after 1905/1912, when semi-reliable ones were finally built. Most of the Worlds airship projects were disasters and rigid airships were pretty much extinct by the end of the 30s -- if not sooner most places). FloatyShit™ is only one little bit of making such a thing exist/fly/operate-routinelyfly (BTW We never got much detail about how any of that quantums floating was ever done) Its all done by the power of the might HACK Writers god 'CUZ' where sticky problems like Laws of Physics, real engineering issues, plausibility, a world where the bits fit together and have reasons can be wholly ignored and stupid things shown that can't really work -- even with futuristic startrek technology being available. SO The First Lady airship (or any of them) was make out of wicker, stucco and bricks ??? With the game writer's Fantasy magic, yes it could be. (Again why not a flying Angel Statue INSTEAD??) --- --- --- ADAM Products were equivalent of building the V2 Rocket : Both required creation of entire NEW sets of technologies (and even materials) that didn't yet exist and took alot of trial and error testing and incremental development. What the ADAM experiments did to 'test subjects' was equivalent to V2 test firings that constantly blew up from one technical problem after another. The end-product required complex mechanisms, very specific performance, and had so many ways to go wrong. In the end, when finally working, it was revolutionary (Basically much of the same technology was what took Apollo 11 to the Moon).. --- --- --- A REAL SLUM (For those who consider 'Paupers Drop' or 'Shantytown' one) : 800 persons an acre in White Chapel (slum, East End, London, England) - of 'Jack the Ripper' fame - 1888. ... (640 acres in a square mile). How big was Infinite BS's "Shanty Town", which looks like a pristine gated community by comparison to a real one ... looks virtually empty (Comstock, calling it 'Shanty Town' is rubbing the poor's faces into their predicament, ain't it ? To mock it properly, it should have some high-falutin name, but with the inhabitants/Vox scrawling "Shanty Town" or 'Comshitown' over signs in response). BTW -- a 'shanty town' is a bunch of shanties - irregular/haphazard buildings put together from castoffs and scraps/refuse, by people too poor to even afford tenement rents, and usually built on unwanted ground. "Tenement" a better word ??? "Company Town" ??? BTW, WHY would Comstock have unwanted people in his 'Eden' when it is so easy to dispose of them ?? The poor 'white' people barely had jobs (the writers Class War anti-capitalist theme), and minorities less and worse. WHO would even stay in Columbia under such conditions ? The writers obviously have little knowledge of the 'gumption' of actual 'Americans' of that era (( '' Maybe too much modern welfare/entitlement mentality in the brain for them ... Too 'used to' expecting freebies paid by someone else - clueless to what others paid for their 'ease' and safety '' )) --- --- --- Why Do Some Writers Create so Much Story Detail to Try to Justifying Something That is Pure Illogical Magic Fantasy ?? : There was an unfortunate desire by this game's developers to be 'clever', and so are too 'explainey' about everything. All their explanations though are SO VERY flawed, and DO NOT actually justify the story's content. It is NOT clever to 'explain', in significant detail, something that goes against the Laws of Physics, or Simple Economics, or Common Sense. Then to further have what they shown be inconsistent in application across the games story (with itself), that is the WORST of all. Any BS Technology should be kept vague, and thus not test the Players 'Suspension of Belief', and not taint/distract-from the telling of the actual 'story'. Don't point it out. Don't elaborate. Don't waste time from the 'story'. The writers of Infinite BS supplied/declared far too many 'facts', which don't actually make sense when all put together -- SEEN If the Player understands even a little about how the Real World works. The "Its Only A Game" 'defense' (which some fanbois employ) then ALSO renders NULL any Social Issue Points the 'story' is supposed to be trying to contain. That is a very LAME excuse for a game alleged to be 'special' becaus it has ' 'Story' ' and to have some ersatz Historic-based Context. - Example : Columbia somehow MAKING (manufacturing) all this fancy stuff (ex- the ludicrous Fink Manufacturing Factory) ? They show a monstrocity of a '6 year olds' idea of a 'factory', and the Poor Oppressed Workers ('Class warfare' which wasn't even the game's main theme anymore) being subjected to excruciatingly bad cliches. A EASY Solution would have been to instead "JUST STEAL IT ALL" (Infinite BS and Columbia have the perfect pretext with those 'Tear' things to TAKE the magical advanced things for their city from somewhere else ...) INSTEAD, You (The Player) see somebody (Kink in the game story) allegedly making something of great complexity/''ridiculously advanced'' for their era (something that doesn't-exist-yet/is-unknown in their World). SOMEHOW those somebodies can (with little possible previous understanding of what engineering/science/special-knowledge/experience is actually involved) suddenly MAKE ALL those many marvelous technological whatzits ?? That's retarded to think possible (or to write such). It takes a great ignoramous to NOT KNOW that you don't 'Just MAKE Stuff'.It is EQUIVALENT TO Kenny Levine making an Automobile with a rock, and a turd, and some 'good intentions'. Complex things are not made simply by wrench-wielding 1900s day laborers, just as sophisticated genetic (or whatever) potions are NOT brewed up like lemonade (either). Making complex modern things requires the right know-how, the right materials, the right tools (and making/fixing/maintaining/replacing those specific advanced tools with other ALSO sophisticated tools). Whole RAFTS of those things are how its done in the Real World. Where possibly do ALL these things THEN come from when they don't yet exist ??? Its WORSE (and stupider) : You FIRST need other advanced machines to make the special materials involved, and tools to make the advanced tools to make the parts. The Piles of advanced tech goodies shown in the story will require large piles of these special things to get to Columbia (somehow) first - or worse somehow be created in their caveman-like technological vacuum. The EASIEST plausible way this could happen : All those things would have to be stolen from whatever 'multi-verse' place they would already exist. You might as well also steal the skilled people who KNOW how 'making' the thing is done, and can OPERATE/MAINTAIN the tools, the machines, etc ... ACTUALLY, You might as well cut out the middleman and ONLY STEAL the Final Objects/Products directly (to be plausible/logical/Not-Fantasy). It SHOULDd have been shown as an integral and interesting part of the story - 'Pirate Columbia'. ( Fink's factory might just be a FRONT for Fink's Stolen Goods Warehouse - with the Truth being hidden from the Populace < ------ << SEE THAT'S GOOD STORY WRITING . ) THIS is Fantasy still - but far more LOGICAL Fantasy. Consider, for ALL of THAT STEALING, maybe the people on the other side of those 'Tears' don't want their STUFF stolen. Instead you might cause 300 Phaser-wielding enforcer droids pouring thru the Tear who then proceed to destroy all of Columbia -- It could happen on any one of the countless harvestings of goodies which Fink and his compatriots would have had to do to get just one new whizzbang item built/stolen. Each would be more like a Pirate Raid to ensure success in a likely resisting target. Hey, Let's not even mention the disease pathogens they would bring back, which might wipe Columbia out in a day ... (or kill half the people like historic Plagues did). But THIS Columbia might be the one in a million (infinity) which luckily avoided THOSE fates. Unfortunately, The way Infinite BS was written, it seems just too much lazy contrivance in Levine&Co's story ... They (just) have all these quaint styled magic toys, but the writers ignorantly assume it was (just) done "the old way". They wanted a Nostalgia Element (which was a key part of the original REAL BioShock games success). They also wanted their contrived "Class Warfare" - so they had to have their gianourmous factories for the lower orders (oppressed immigrants and minorities) to toil and be abused in. I understand the game was so loosely (re)written because it was kludged together in desperation as their schedule slipped and budgets soared. But that's a management problem - an excuse, NOT any justification for a sub-standard story and setting. --- --- --- . . . . Note how small these REAL WORLD shops are in such a huge REAL city. They would have 50 X more potential customers than in Rapture (or Columbia). Businessmen don't waste money on space they don't use/cant afford and constantly have to pay the overhead for. Economics does NOT work the way Artists (and fantasy writers) might conceive/expect it too. FAKE IS FAKE and IGNORANCE IS IGNORANCE. (HACK FANTASY TAKES LITTLE SKILL) --- --- --- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Insurance map of a small bit of LA around 1905. Just a small portion of a real city. Blocks and blocks of businesses and houses and apartments, and roads connecting it all. Most mere towns were at least this large. Columbia is mostly empty air and would have been frightful to try to get around in. --- --- --- Columbia - The place that looks like a 3 year old child glued it Together ... REALITY - Lighting of Interiors Was Still Horrendously Expensive In 1893 : 1882 Thomas A Edison lights up a square mile of New York city, with 3000 lightbulbs (the first central power plant in the US began producing electricity Sep 4, 1882). This was a stunt, and at that point STILL only rich people could afford Electric Lighting - and Edison stuck to local DC powerplants as the real business opportunity. The power conduit installation of that project alone cost $300,000 (- so at $100 each bulb, it would take a while to pay off (with inflation, that $100 would be something near $2500 today)https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/relativevalue.php. Rapture would have similar lighting issues, but at least the expense wouldn't much be a limiting factor for the majority of citizens. --- --- --- --- --- . .